Fred's 1990 Volvo 740 GLE Sedan

[Fred]

Might be getting an invite to a private drift session mid December... so if I'm to attend I need to turn one of my RWD cars into something of a drift queen: LSD, or in the case of this 740, Eaton G80 locker.

A list of things from essential to optional:

1. G80 locker from caravan installed
2. Rear tyres swapped to front and vice versa
3. Pulley swapped for non-slipping one from spare B234F and belts tensioned
4. Upgraded front sway bar installed
5. Front end urethane all installed
6. New front rotors and pads installed
7. Oil changed to proper PAO/Ester synthetic (nearly due)
8. Trailer wiring made more proper (have dodgy lead that connects to a tail light harness)
9. Bring all dodgy Volvo wheels/tyres back from storage, and borrow both caravan wheels

And maybe other stuff. I have about a month to achieve some subset of that. But it's a busy month in other ways. 145am, time for bed!

Paid and going. Yeeeee ha! Maybe.

On the immediate agenda:

1) Pulley fix up this coming Sunday
2) Weld existing diff, no time for G80 swap

Already done:

1) Rear/front tyre swap around

Definitely need to:

1) Get wheels/tyres from storage
2) Improve trailer wiring setup
3) Oil change for hard core race oil

Unlikely to occur:

1) Brake components swap
2) Suspension components swap

Day before:

Complete required mods/fixes of various types
Load up trailer and boot Volvo and R33 - tools, wheels/tyres, bbq, compressed air, sausages, chilly bin, drinks, shade, etc.

On the day:

1) Whip plates off and store

Looking forward to this! :-)

[Fred]

So much has come and gone, so many updates required, so many uploads needed, and yet, not much.

Smoked my way through 5 spare tyres, one lasted better than three due to a preference for turning right while doing donuts.

There was even some controlled power sliding around cones at times, some wet, and later, some dry when I got the car to behave.

MIG diff is acceptable for daily use. I'll get myself into trouble come the first rainy day, though...

[Fred]

Now running real synthetic oil made of PAO and Ester from Penrite as per: viewtopic.php?p=44118#p44118

And the speedo that broke that I didn't even get to write about here got fixed on Sunday morning, first thing out of the house:

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 1810622464
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 0355955712
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9282423808
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 6723841025














Rear pads are also worn clean through, but I can't seem to buy them for it easily! Will be swapping in the caravan axle with functional brakes sometime before April, so no biggy. May let them grind, or may source some that'll end up in the caravan.

[Fred]

So a while back I swapped the calipers from the caravan onto the sedan, and the disks, and it was good, and so were the included pads from the caravan.

Then one day I smelled diff oil. Uh oh. I was some distance away. Uh oh. I limped it home making more and more noise, drum roll. It sat there ever since, and in the mean time, the tyre got knifed, just like the guy who did that to it is going to get. Hooray for his balls, in a vice.

And then I aired up the right rear which has a slow leak, aired up the front left with the sidewall holes, and brought it inside, that was Saturday arvo. Started pulling it to bits and found that my MIG locker job was not the best, had come apart and it was a piece of gear/weld that smashed the hole out of the cover. Ooops.

Got the old axle out and the G80 from the caravan partly in this evening. A few things torqued up. A few things finger tight, and a forecast of heaps of rain. No, scratch that, a volatile forecast that now shows rain the day after tomorrow, not tomorrow. It also said it'd be fine today, and it pissed down for half an hour early arvo. In either case, by end of tomorrow, I should have it buttoned up and be on the hunt for some 205/60R15 tyres to fit to at least 3 of the wheels, possibly four.

Then I might take some time off the car fleet to do some ocean based stuff.

[Fred]

G80 is in, all fasteners tight, and drives normally. I did not test the functionality of the G80 this evening, however perhaps I will over the weekend - we'll see. It achieved donuts in the caravan when it was a car, so I can't see that having changed.

Tyre patch worked okay so far, leak did not recur. Saw 70kph, speed bumps, and moderate braking, but no hard cornering. Wouldn't trust it on the motorway, I don't think. But might putter around to a quite street and destroy the two rears in the next few weeks. If I can find a set of 4 decent 205/60R15 tyres, then I might get them all matching.

Back on the street like she didn't miss a beat. And all the things that were wrong before are still wrong. Pulley, front brakes, etc.

Time to tidy up the tools and shuffle the garage, I guess.

[Fred]

Bought a pair of like-new tyres during the week and had them fitted to the original rims this morning, and fitted them to the front of the car this evening.

Took it for a few drives to get food and booze. The action of the G80 is a bit inconsistent and disappointing. eg:

If the grip walks, it never really locks
If you're going too fast it doesn't lock (known)
Too fast can be quite slow if the spin accelerates the centre at the same time as the outside, ie, the counter weight clears the latch and it fails to engage.
If you lift, it unlocks

However, if you can stay hoof in and get it locked from the dig, then it stays locked and you can sail down the road sideways through second gear.

All in all, it needs to be modified like Sim did.

It also needs fancy oil to live long and prosper. So I guess when I get a chance in a few weeks, I'll pull the back cover off of it and mod the G80 mechanism and reseal the cover, and refill with 80w140 PAO/Ester full synth Penrite.

Mean while, at least she's back in action. I missed driving it. Sweet car.

[Fred]

Skids finally published: https://youtu.be/Ds3wSdXyf9Q

Watch the old girl getting the snot beaten out of her in full motion picture colour semi-HD video :-D

[Fred]

Screeching from pulley and/or belts was getting embarrassing/annoying, so I took action and finally tried my pulley fix. Success!

Drove it to the steepest place I could find and flooded the front of it with super glue. Bumped the key to start a few times to make the puddle rotate around the pulley for 360* soakage.

Results: No longer able to make it squeal by turning the steering against the lock. Still squealing from headlight load etc. Damn, belt must be shit, too.

Tightened belt, still squealed, drove and picked up and installed a new one, solved, almost silent. Except.... that turning the steering against full lock now makes a subtle squeal... The other half, rubber to inner!

So second coat of superglue is still pending. Need to make/find some ramps to really get the nose up in the air, and load up the boot with water or something and retry the super glue such that it infiltrates the other surface.

Results pending :-)